"Humiliating for media types" is ambiguous, and I realize that Hot Air means that those media types think she is being humiliated, but when I first read that I thought he meant that the media type were humiliating themselves, which is what I would say. Do these people seriously want to suggest that all of the young women who participate in beauty pageants are being humiliated? What snobbery! What prudery! And I bet they look like hell in a bathing suit.

Really, what is the point of thinking this old video means anything at all?

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan posts "Fighting The Power: An alternative version of the pageant video. As often as they try to remove it, the people will replace it." Does Sullivan have any feeling for how creepy it seems for him to exult over his power to continue spying at the woman's body? I would like to hear him explain the point of this.

73 comments:

Gosh, my TWELVE year olds participate in pageants (have since they were five.) They have fun. They learn important skills for the future, like how to give a good interview and how to speak on a stage in front of a roomful of strangers.

I don't expect them to win (we don't go Jon-Benet nuts-overboard about it) and if they ever decide they aren't having fun and they don't want to do it anymore then they are free to get involved with something else (though we have a rule that our kids always have to be involved with something and it has to be an activity that we approve of.)

I actually think that continuing to go after Palin is counterproductive for liberals (though I'm not surprised that the media obsession continues, maybe McCain should have picked Paris Hilton-- the result would be the same and Paris is more comfortable in front of a camera.)

The real weakness on the GOP side is McCain. Erratic, inconsistent and impulsive.

Look, this woman could be one step away from the highest office in the freakin world. I've never even seen her in a pants suit. Is this the vision we want to project about America to the rest of the world?

Is he doing a parody of his normal, hyperbolic style over something that's seemingly unimportant, or is there something hidden in that video that matters?

Seriously, I don't get it. With all the legitimate ways to go after Palin, why waste time on this? If the McCain camp (or whoever) is out there deleting these videos left and right, it doesn't strike me as that big of a deal. It's not like they're hiding something important. (I recognize that they may, in fact, be trying to hide important things as well, but this isn't it.) It only makes me less willing to take these people seriously when they offer up more serious criticism of Palin.

My initial question is not rhetorical. I genuinely wonder if I'm being dense here.

Look, this woman could be one step away from the highest office in the freakin world. I've never even seen her in a pants suit. Is this the vision we want to project about America to the rest of the world?

I didn't mean all women enter beauty pageants, just that when you don't have family financing, you usually have to find a way to earn money to pay for college at jobs a whole lot more demeaning and/or humiliating than a beauty pageant. Try waitressing in a truck stop some time.

The significance of the clip, of course, is that having now seen her in the swimsuit competition, we can better understand and appreciate where she developed her habit of answering serious questions in the same manner one would expect from a beauty pagaent contestant. I'm also thinking that she did better in the swimsuit competition than she did in the Q & A.

Sarah Palin's participation in the Miss Alaska contest tells us two things, only one of which is relevant to her political qualifications, and that only indirectly.

The completely irrelevant thing, which nonetheless is the reason for 99% of the interest, is that she's an attractive woman who was an attractive young woman.

The indirectly relevant thing is that as a middle child in a large family headed by two working parents who were public school teachers (and who also had to take odd jobs, e.g., in her father's case, as a hunting guide), young adult Sarah Palin figured out that the Miss Alaska competition was a ticket to a college scholarship  and she got it.

It hasn't hurt Barack Obama that he's considered by some to be a hunk. Dubya had his own heart-throb clique not that long ago. John Kennedy certainly didn't mind competing with James Bond as the sexiest guy of the early 1960s. If a politician has a nice asset, even if that's a nice ass, he/she ought to be alert to ways to put it to work in non-crass ways. If the president of Pakistan is inclined to come on to the VPOTUS and that can lead to better Pakistani cooperation on border raids against al Qaeda, then more power to our hottest national politician from our coldest state.

Is this the vision we want to project about America to the rest of the world?

Absolutely. Women in bathing suits drive jihadists absolutely ape shit. Their moral indignation then causes them to spend money and time planning terrorist attacks, and such activity helps us identify and kill them.

Works for me.

Oh, and I hate one-piece bathing suits. I was very disappointed in the video.

We have seen recent video of BHO in a swimsuit. Are you saying that the media is hiding some old video of BHO in a beauty pageant? I'm sure it would be shown if it existed.

And, bigger picture, who cares about this video ?

It's not damaging to Palin. I can't imagine someone changing their vote because of this video. This is not like the damaging Couric interview. That video has made some folks newly question Palin's ability to take over as president and CIC.

r.a.a.,

Are you one of those who disprove of folks calling a restroom a bathroom?

Bess Myerson, sometime back, ran to be the Senator from NY. The fact that she was a former Miss America was presented in the most positive light by the media. It was a different time with different customs, but I think the operative difference between her and Palin was that Myerson was a liberal....Life is too short to research things like this but as I recall Myerson's campaign eventually melted down not because she lacked poise or intelligence but because--despite her intelligence and poise--she had a total bimbo relationship with some low life....The important point to be made about beauty contests is that there are no important points to be made about beauty contests. Many here wish to poke fun at Biden's hair plugs. Perhaps they say something about his vanity, but, really, they say nothing about his intelligence or competence. Hair plugs and beauty contests are moot issues in choosing a president. Now growing up in Inodnesia--that's foreign policy experience we can take to the (WaMu) bank.

Ruth Anne, the original term was "bathing suit," and people spoke of bathing to mean going for a dip in the water. We speak of bathing beauties, not swimming beauties. I think the revision to the term "swimsuit" is ugly and prissy.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan posts "Fighting The Power: An alternative version of the pageant video. As often as they try to remove it, the people will replace it." Does Sullivan have any feeling for how creepy it seems for him to exult over his power to continue spying at the woman's body? I would like to hear him explain the point of this?

Thank-you. That is my thought exactly. That's why I've stopped reading Sullivan and started reading this blog more. It's possible to legitimately criticize her (or anyone else) without being insane.

Please. Someone found an old picture of Hillary in college and all the conservative blog guys were talking about how attractive she was. And wasn't that Hillary bust with a lace bra thing supposed to be empowering?

It's so dang hard to keep up with the rules.

I watched the video of Palin meeting the president of Pakistan and him complimenting her on her beauty and offering to hug, if a handshake wasn't enough. He was cute. Only a complete *ss would see his appreciation as anything other than a desire to compliment and be gracious. And she was gracious back.

The comments on the network web page following the clip were down-right vile.

It was sexist and horrible. SHE was sexist... somehow. What was she supposed to have done? Something, apparently, because by smiling and putting up with it she completely enslaved women, destroying every possible good thing accomplished toward equality.

Who can figure out the rules? Palin is horrible because she seems f*ckable without ever giving the impression she'd be willing to f*ck? Oh sure, the conservative blog dudes have been pretty dang clear on her do-ability... why is this supposedly a bad thing when the last-wave feminists are all about the goddess given right to f*ck like a bunny?

At what point did it become necessary again for women to be ugly to be taken seriously?

The answer to that is simple... when Sarah Palin entered the race for Vice President.

Andrew, like the psychologically tortured, unreconstructed old queen he is, is repelled by yet obsessed with the woman's body. The blurry image of the woman in the red bathing suit walks in circles around the darkened stage, forever and ever, in his sleep-apnea fractured nightmares.

There can be no appeals to reason on this issue. Andrew probably doesn't himself know why it drives him so.

Notice the complete absence of the female principle from Andrew's world. She exists only as a dream image, a nightmare mother, a whore, the woman he can't be, the woman he can't have.

Even if Sarah Palin fades from the political spotlight, she will never leave his dreams.

Forgive the pop psychology. It's all a load of crap, but irresistible to apply it to someone who has behaved so repugnantly. I can't believe I used to defend Sullivan against Michelangelo Signorile's attacks on Andrew "Glutes" Sullivan's "private life" (his online trolling for bareback sex partners) [link not safe for work]. Sullivan used to squeal about his privacy being invaded. Well, now we learn that (shockingly!) Andrew doesn't care about privacy as a principle, or anything as a principle. He just cares about Andrew Sullivan.

Since when did participation in a Miss Alaska contest become a "private" matter?

Sorry - but Palin is a joke. She has an IQ of 90. And scholarship money - yeah right. This is a woman who went to five community colleges over 6 years before graduating. She thinks dinosaurs walked the earth 7000 years ago. She's not very bright.

Heh heh - Something that strikes me as funny - I have seen some comments claiming Sarah and her supporters are either nuts and or stupid. Yup, if you don’t agree with me then you must be stupid. LOL WOW! What a great way to convince me that your position is correct!

Conservatives have a different culture and value system than leftists and as such your attacks are in direct contradiction to the left’s multiculturalists views. What happened to respecting all cultures? What happened to the view that all cultures are of equal value? Oooh, sorry - I guess your just a cultural supremacist bigot. lol

Just because someone doesn’t have the same values as you do doesn’t make them crazy or dumb by default. Watching Gore's "Current TV" channel does that! Just kidding (a little) lol